Confocal microscopy!

These are thymocytes I induced to go into apoptosis (programmed cell death) by irradiation. Lasers are used to excite the fluorescent dyes so that they emit different colors of light. This week was the first time I did everything myself and got some decent pics. Props to Harry Leung, core optical imaging manager of the CBR, for showing me the ropes.

Blue = TO-PRO-3, a nuclear dye
Red = annexinV, a marker of early apoptotic cells
Green = our transgenic autoantibody, which we are trying to characterize